The bottom line is clear: Our vital interests in Afghanistan are limited and military victory is not the key to achieving them. On the contrary, waging a lengthy counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan may well do more to aid Taliban recruiting than to dismantle the group, help spread conflict further into Pakistan, unify radical groups that might otherwise be quarreling amongst themselves, threaten the long-term health of the U.S. economy, and prevent the U.S. government from turning its full attention to other pressing problems. -- Afghanistan Study Group

Monday, April 30, 2007

Photo: Hassan(L) and his brother Ali Mousa holding a family photo at their home in Basra in 2005. British Corporal Donald Payne, who had admitted abusing Iraqi civilians, including the boys' father Baha Mousa, was thrown out of the army and jailed for a year on Monday after being convicted as the country's first war criminal.(AFP/File/Essam al-Sudani)

The blast in Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, took place about 7pm on Saturday in a crowded area close to the shrines of Imam Abbas and Imam Hussein. The shrines were not damaged, police said.Police first thought the explosion was caused by a parked car bomb, but Ghalib al-Daami, a Karbala provincial council member, said it was a suicide bomber.Salim Kazim, the spokesman for Karbala health directorate, said the death toll had risen to 68 and 178 wounded. "The explosion was so powerful that it threw me up into the air," said Haidar Ismail, a patient at ImamHusseinHospital.Saturday's attack was the second car bomb to strike the city's central area in two weeks. On 14 April, 47 people were killed and 224 were wounded in a car bombing.

Up to a dozen loud explosions have rocked central Baghdad as armed groups continued to target civilians and police in the country's capital.The sound of sirens coming from the Green Zone could be heard across the city after the blasts after nightfall on Monday, which sounded like mortar bombs or rockets.Smoke was seen rising from the government compound at the Green Zone which houses the US and British embassies as well as Iraqi government buildings.

Two Iraqi women risk their lives to document what is happening in their country, in particular what is happening to the civilians.This film is about 45 minutes long.One thing they show is the bombing of a hospital in Quam, how it was totally destroyed and how the local children promise to fight Americans forever.It shows them practicing medicine under very difficult situations.Quote:“This is destruction, not democracy.”Be sure to watch the end and what happened to an 8 year old Iraqi girl.Another quote:“The destruction caused by the occupation has shattered Iraqi’s lives in a way that is almost too much to bear. A dark future lies ahead.I believe it is a shame on the world that it did not stop this happening.”

Saleh Nizar, a 58-year-old gardener, says he was tortured in an Iraqi prison after he was arrested and accused of participating in an attack in the capital, Baghdad. He was arrested on 15 October 2006 and set free on 5 April 2007 after he was helped by a senior Iraqi officer who said that Nizar was his gardener and that he was definitely innocent.As result of the torture he endured, one of his legs sustained serious injuries and doctors said it might require amputation. Nizar, who has a heart condition which he did not receive treatment for while in prison, now spends much of his time in hospitals and clinics trying to stay alive."For the nearly six months that I was in prison I didn't have a day of peace. Either they were torturing me or shouting at me, using the ugliest words, accusing me of being a Saddam Hussein follower who deserved the same fate as his [death by hanging]."The most common torture was the use of electric shocks and cigarettes to burn our skin. Other times they would beat us with pieces of wood or electrical wire. Some detainees were also raped by the officers in front of everyone. And if the victim tried to run away, they hit him with a piece of wood. The suffering I endured in prison was doubled because in addition to the pain that I had after each torture session, there was also the desperate screaming of the other prisoners.”

The concrete walls going up in certain Baghdad neighborhoods and other parts of the country will cost ten million dollars, in addition to the costs of transportation and installation, al-Hayat writes on Monday, citing an economist's estimate. Regardless of what happens in Adhamiya, the predominantly Sunni area of Eastern Bahgdad were the construction of a concrete wall has sparked much controversy, separation walls are planned to be installed in at least ten districts of Baghdad and in 40 other areas around the country, Iraqi officials said. Ominously, one interior ministry official said to al-Hayat that “building separation barriers will not end the series of violent acts in the capital.” The official added that the money coming from the Defense Ministry for the construction was enough to create and equip an advanced brigade of security forces. The source added that the majority of detachments of the Defense and Interior ministries lacked the most basic equipment, due to lack of funds. Meanwhile, residents of Adhamiya are watching the debate about the wall that isolates them from the rest of Baghdad with concern, as the completion of the concrete wall means the isolation of the district from the rest of the city, imprisoning Adhamiya in a “closed cocoon,” whereas undoing the wall means continuing the tragic conditions the neighborhood is experiencing, al-Hayat reported last week.

Al-Hayat , writing in Arabic, alleges that on Sunday night, the elected Governing Council of Basra decided to fire provincial governor Muhammad Misbah al-Wa'ili, the leader in that region of the Islamic Virtue Party (Fadhila). The move came in the wake of a campaign waged by the rival Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq against him after the Virtue Party withdrew from the Shiite party coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance. Al-Hayat's sources maintained that British forces escorted al-Wa'ili to the airport, from which he left for parts unknown.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that a source close to nationalist Shiite cleric says that he has sent representatives to Arab countries "to lay the foundation for a Sunni-Shiite alliance." The source said, "Sadr commissioned Aws al-Khafaji and Ahmad al-Shaybani to make a tour of Arab, regional and Islamic states in order to unite Sunnis and Shiites." He added, "The tour will end in the next few days, and will include meetings with Sunni clergymen in the Islamic world, along with political and Islamic personalities in the regional and Arab environs-- to explain the dimensions of the suspicious efforts to provoke conflict between the sects."

This week, on the anniversary of President Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech, May 1st, 2003, we interview a member of the Iraqi resistance group, Islamic Army in Iraq. The Islamic Army of Iraq is considered a terrorist group by the United States and most members of the Iraqi government. Tareq Al-Hashemi however, while Vice President of Iraq, called them a resistance group.Some confusion about the exact nature and make-up of the Islamic Army exists because it was initially confused with Al-Qaeda. It has since been determined that they are two separate groups. That became especially clear early in April, 2007, as a war of words began on their opposing websites.

Apparent efforts by some parts of the domestic Iraqi resistance to negotiate with the Americans, coupled with the efforts by the Qaeda-related Islamic State of Iraq to monopolize the resistance (among other reasons to block any such negotiations), have led to a number of interesting developments, one lasting one being the formation, or re-formation, of something called "Hamas--Iraq," following the split-up of the Brigades of the 1920 Revolution.There is a lot of background available here on the birth of Hamas--Iraq and its ideology, the most important point being that according to its manifesto, this looks like a group that could be inclined to follow the kind of combined military-political strategy for which the original Palestinian Hamas is known. In theory this might give the Americans a counterparty to negotiate with. Marc Lynch (see the link above) emphasizes that their willingness to negotiate depends on a convincing withdrawal-commitment from the Americans. But there are other issues too.

REPORTS – US/UK/OTHERS IN IRAQ

Ex-Soldier Recalls Horrors of Abu GhraibSaturday marked the third anniversary of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. On Apr. 28, 2004 CBS broadcast the first graphic photos of torture inside of the U.S.-run prison in Iraq on its 60 Minutes II programme. "Americans did this to an Iraqi prisoner," news anchor Dan Rather said as a slideshow of disturbing torture photos flashed across the screen. "The man was told to stand on a box with his head covered, with wires attached to his hands. He was told if he fell off the box, he would be electrocuted." More photos followed. U.S. soldiers posed with naked Iraqi prisoners, including one with detainees stacked in a pyramid. In most of the photos, the soldiers were smiling. At the time, the Pentagon, represented by Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, said only a few "bad apples" engaged in torture. "What would I tell the people of Iraq?" he said. "This is wrong. This is reprehensible, but this is not representative of the 150,000 soldiers that are over here. I would say the same thing to the American people. Don't judge your Army based on the actions of a few." The soldiers in the photos were prosecuted and many received prison sentences, but no high-ranking officers or George W. Bush administration officials were put on trial. That didn't sit well with U.S. Army interrogator Tony Lagouranis. He came forward to say that torture was common practice in Iraq and that he had himself tortured prisoners while stationed in Mosul in 2004.

Britain's first convicted war criminal was sentenced to one year in jail on Monday for mistreating Iraqi prisoners in a case that exposed senior commanders to accusations they had authorised abuse.Corporal Donald Payne was also kicked out of the army, becoming the only British soldier punished in the case of Baha Musa, an Iraqi hotel receptionist who died after suffering 93 injuries from beatings while in British custody in 2003.His lawyer called him a "sacrificial lamb", punished for carrying out orders.Payne had entered his guilty plea to the war crime of abusing prisoners at the start of an eight-month trial that then failed to secure convictions against six others, including his unit commander, Lieutenant Colonel Jorge Mendonca.During the trial, witnesses testified that abuse of prisoners had been authorised by the British brigade headquarters in Iraq, which allowed detainees to be "conditioned" with harsh treatment such as stress positions.Britain has denied its commanders authorised such techniques, which it considers illegal. But the judge ruled Mendonca and his staff were not to blame because they believed their own commanders had approved the abuse.

Documents captured in recent fighting in Baghdad included two identity cards for access to the fortified Green Zone, which contains Iraqi government headquarters, and an ID card for access to the U.S. Embassy, the Pentagon says.The area where the documents were captured - just west of the Green Zone - has been a stronghold of Sunni extremists linked to al-Qaida, said Army Col. Steven Townsend, commander of 3rd Stryker Brigade that led the operation.Townsend, speaking to reporters at the Pentagon on Monday in a videoconference from Baghdad, did not mention the discovery of the identity cards. That information was provided separately by Pentagon officials after he spoke.

A State Department report on terrorism due out next week will show a nearly 30 percent increase in terrorist attacks worldwide in 2006, to more than 14,000, with almost all of the boost due to growing violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. officials said Friday.The annual report's release comes amid a bitter feud between the White House and Congress over funding for U.S. troops in Iraq and a deadline favored by Democrats to begin a U.S. troop withdrawal. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her top aides earlier this week had considered postponing or downplaying the release of this year's edition of the terrorism report, officials in several agencies and on Capitol Hill said.

Last week something eye-catching sprouted on the lawn of the Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship on Pendleton Road in Clemson.From a car window, whizzing past at 30 miles per hour, it looked like a flock of small white birds, or maybe a bag of confetti scattered across the grass. Not something you normally see in front of a church.So I parked my truck and got out to have a closer look.Dozens of tiny flags on metal stems were stuck into the grass, in a random pattern. A few flags, in front, were baby blue but all the others were white.In front of them was a sign affixed to a wooden stake, also stuck in the grass.“Each flag represents more than 100 deaths,” the sign stated in capital letters, stark black.Another, smaller sign stood next to it. That one announced that the blue flags represented United States troops, the white ones Iraqi civilian casualties.Farther back was one last sign, much taller than the others, standing stiffly like a general amid his troops.“With these flags we sadly commemorate Iraqi war deaths,” it said.

I squatted to look at one of the blue flags near my feet. It had a black outline of a dove, with an olive branch in its mouth. In the corner was a tiny stars-and-stripes emblem.Small letters whispered the message: “This is a remembrance of US military casualties in Iraq. May they rest in Peace. May their country find Peace.”I counted the blue flags. There were 25. Twenty-five times 100 American soldiers.

Then I looked out over the sea of white flags. There were so many, I couldn’t count them. They stretched across the grass to the other side of the church parking lot. Each one was encased in a plastic sleeve, still dotted with water droplets from an overnight rain.They carried the same dove, the same “Rest in Peace” message.A chilly wind stirred the flags, making them flutter slightly, like origami paper cranes about to take flight.War statistics are always brain-numbing. The week before last, 700 Iraqis were killed by roadside bombs and other violence. The total of U.S. troops killed in Iraq now tops 3,000. We read the numbers, but so often they’re just that — numbers.

Slowly I walked the length of the lawn, trying to let it sink in how many tens of thousands of dead people these flags represented.One hundred per flag. All of them civilians. Children. Grandparents. Newlyweds. Elders. Newborns.Next to the display, on a rain-slickened road, cars sped by in both directions. People on their way to work, school, errands. Living their lives.One flag had collapsed into the wet grass. I picked it up and pushed it back into the damp ground.As if that could make a difference.

Quote of the day: “The destruction caused by the occupation has shattered Iraqi’s lives in a way that is almost too much to bear. A dark future lies ahead.I believe it is a shame on the world that it did not stop this happening.” – from video made by Iraqi women, link above

Yesterday, in linking (favorably) to an article by Thomas E. Ricks, I described him as a former "cheerleader" for the Iraq war. Mr. Ricks has objected to this characterization. After some research and reflection, I agree that the remark was overly flippant and unfair to him. Before reviewing the relevant facts, let me say that in recent years, Mr. Ricks has been one of the most important critical voices on the actual conduct of the war. He has made a notable contribution to public understanding and we have often linked to his work.

The firmest basis for my comment, in my view, is this, written April 21 2003, in which he sees Donald Rumsfeld bestriding the narrow world like a Colossus. "He has triumphed in a military success in Iraq that featured an audacious war plan he helped to shape. He also looms large outside the Pentagon, injecting himself far more into intelligence matters than his predecessors and playing an unusually large role in shaping Bush administration foreign policy. He even has turned around a sour relationship with Congress. He now is in position to reshape the U.S. military along the lines he has talked about since taking office, "transforming" it into a more agile and precise force built not around firepower but around information, and willing to take risks to succeed." And it goes on in that vein.

Finally, I refer to Brad DeLong's post-mortem on Ricks's early coverage of the war. DeLong writes, "But go back to clips, and you discover that Tom Ricks was writing "he said, she said" articles in the first six months of 2004. Witness this one, with none of the context necessary to show his readers that Wolfowitz is a fool living in an ideological fantasy land: [article excerpt follows] Tom Ricks could have done any of a huge number of things to tell the Washington Post's readers that Wolfowitz was--as Ricks knew he was--either lying through his teeth or the most deluded man north of the Picketwire. .. Why, Tom, why? Why in the name of the Holy One couldn't you have told us what you knew was going on back in 2003 or 2004? What did you think you were doing? Why keep your real views of Wolfowitz and Bremer and Odierno and company secret, so that they show up two and a half years late and many, many brave men and women's lives short?"

So, not exactly a cheerleader. Again, that was a flip remark for which I apologize. But still, often less skeptical and forthright than we could have hoped for. I hope that Mr. Ricks will accept this as a sincere attempt to view his work in that era in a balanced way -- certainly he was no Judith Miller. This was a dark time indeed for U.S. journalism, and there are very few prominent reporters who can claim an unblemished record. I acknowledge his important and praiseworthy work since then.

I have offered Mr. Ricks the opportunity to respond to this post, and if he decides to do so, I will be happy to post whatever he says exactly as he writes it. We all know how important it is for reporters to look back on that period and consider what they got right and what they got wrong. I'm sure it isn't easy.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Morgue workers look at the bodies lying on the ground outside a morgue in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad April 29, 2007. About 10 bodies with gunshot wounds were found in a village near Baquba, police said. REUTERS/Helmiy al-Azawi (IRAQ) Note: This is yet another of those incidents that is reported only in a photo caption. It seems odd that Reuters publishes this photo, but does not include the incident in its report for the day. -- C

The Bush administration has invested significantly in the Egypt meeting, which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will attend. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said in a television interview last Thursday that the United States holds a "lot of hope" that the conference will serve as a catalyst for garnering regional and international support for solving Iraq's problems.

David Satterfield, the State Department's coordinator for Iraq, has been in the region for two weeks trying to broker behind-the-scenes agreements in the run-up to the summit. A debt-relief accord for Iraq is expected to be signed on the first day, and discussions among Iraq's neighbors are scheduled for the second day.

The official reason for the Saudi decision, Iraqi officials said, is that the king's schedule is full. But sources involved in the negotiations say the king is increasingly unhappy that Maliki is not doing more on reconciliation, despite pressure from the Arab world, the United States and other nations.

Saudi Arabia, ruled by a Sunni royal family, is concerned about the growing influence of Shiite-ruled Iran. The kingdom, guardian of Islam's holiest sites and birthplace of one of its most conservative ideologies, has been playing a more prominent role in regional affairs, so its snub is likely to resonate throughout the Middle East, Arab sources say.

Since taking office a year ago, Maliki's government has made repeated promises about reaching out to Iraq' s Sunni minority, addressing controversial laws and reconciling politically to end escalating sectarian tensions. But Sunni governments charge that nothing has been done. Arab diplomats said on Saturday that they had hoped that Maliki would come to the conference with a list of steps already taken, but that instead he will offer only more promises.

snip

The Saudi decision follows Abdullah's statement at an Arab League summit a month ago that the U.S. presence in Iraq is an "illegitimate occupation."

Maliki says that Iranian Foreign Minister will attend the Sharm al-Sheikh conference on Iraq, scheduled for May 3, but Iran has not confirmed this. In fact, WaPo's Robin Wright (see link above), reports "The Saudi snub comes amid indications from Iranian officials that Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki might not attend the summit -- which could undermine U.S. hopes of a potential meeting between Rice and her Iranian counterpart." Along with the growing tension between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan, there appears to be growing tension between the Saudis and Iran over the sectarian divide in Iraq. In other words, as we approach Mission Accomplished day on Tuesday, fears about ways in which the destabilization of Iraq could expand into regional conflict are continuing to grow. --C

In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle.

The United States has previously admitted, sometimes under pressure from federal inspectors, that some of its reconstruction projects have been abandoned, delayed or poorly constructed. But this is the first time inspectors have found that projects officially declared a success — in some cases, as little as six months before the latest inspections — were no longer working properly.

The inspections ranged geographically from northern to southern Iraq and covered projects as varied as a maternity hospital, barracks for an Iraqi special forces unit and a power station for Baghdad International Airport.

At the airport, crucially important for the functioning of the country, inspectors found that while $11.8 million had been spent on new electrical generators, $8.6 million worth were no longer functioning.

At the maternity hospital, a rehabilitation project in the northern city of Erbil, an expensive incinerator for medical waste was padlocked — Iraqis at the hospital could not find the key when inspectors asked to see the equipment — and partly as a result, medical waste including syringes, used bandages and empty drug vials were clogging the sewage system and probably contaminating the water system.

snip

Exactly who is to blame for the poor record on sustainment for the first sample of eight projects was not laid out in the report, but the American reconstruction program has been repeatedly criticized for not including in its rebuilding budget enough of the costs for spare parts, training, stronger construction and other elements that would enable projects continue to function once they have been built.

An Iraqi Sunni lawmaker urged his party Sunday to withdraw from the Shiite-led government if it fails to better protect citizens from sectarian bloodshed.

Khalaf al-Ilyan, one of the three leaders of the Iraqi Accordance Front, said his party should set a timetable for the government to end mass killings and "stop threatening lawmakers" from his party.

Al-Ilyan's announcement came less than a week ahead of a conference on Iraq in which Arab countries are expected to demand that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government do more to reach out to disgruntled Sunni Arabs before they pledge substantial aid to the country.

Iraq's neighbors, including Iran, along with Egypt, Bahrain and representatives from the five U.N. Security Council members have agreed to attend the conference, which will be held in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheik on Thursday and Friday.

"I call on the Accordance Front, its leaders, Cabinet ministers and lawmakers, to rise to their responsibilities and to clearly state their position on the deteriorating situation in Iraq," al-Ilyan told reporters in Amman. The Accordance Front holds five Cabinet posts and 44 seats in the Iraqi Parliament.

He urged them to "threaten to completely pull out of the government, unless our legitimate demands are met within a specific period of time to protect our citizens." He declined to specify the timeframe.

• In a statement posted on a militant web site, al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility for a suicide car bomb Thursday that killed 10 Iraqi soldiers at a checkpoint in Khalis, a longtime flashpoint city 50 miles northeast of Baghdad.

"In terms of the consequences of failure, the stakes are much bigger than Vietnam," said former defense secretary William S. Cohen. "The geopolitical consequences are . . . potentially global in scope."

About 17 times as many U.S. troops died in the Vietnam War -- the longest war in U.S. history -- as have been lost in Iraq, the nation's third-longest war. Also, despite widespread public dissatisfaction with the Iraq war, the debate over it has not convulsed American society to the extent seen during the Vietnam conflict. However, Vietnam does not have oil and is not in the middle of a region crucial to the global economy and festering with terrorism, experts say, leading many of them to conclude that the long-term effects of the Iraq war will be worse for the United States.

"It makes Vietnam look like a cakewalk," said retired Air Force Gen. Charles F. Wald, a veteran of the Vietnam War. The domino theory that nations across Southeast Asia would go communist was not fulfilled, he noted, but with Iraq, "worst-case scenarios are the most likely thing to happen."

Iraq is worse than Vietnam "in so many ways," agreed Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr., a retired Army officer and author of one of the most respected studies of the U.S. military's failure in Vietnam. "We knew what we were getting into in Vietnam. We didn't here."

Also, President Richard M. Nixon used diplomacy with China and the Soviet Union to exploit the split between them and so minimize the fallout of Vietnam. By contrast, Krepinevich said, the Bush administration has "magnified" the problems of Iraq by neglecting public diplomacy in the Muslim world and by not developing an energy policy to reduce the significance of Middle Eastern oil.

Would it interest anyone to know that another member of our extended family has perished?

Or has death in Iraq become old, boring news?

He was killed on his doorstep, in full view of his wife and three daughters.

Our men couldn’t attend the funeral, because the deceased was Shiite, and the ceremony was held in his brother’s home in a Shiite neighbourhood.

My mother, my cousin and I decided that we would do our best to attend the women’s ceremony.

They (the family of the diseased) asked for the car’s registration no, its make and colour, and the number of women expected in it. They said we were to reach the former Central Market building (now a great heap of rubble) and stop to await our escort, without which we would not be able to enter the neighbourhood at all – we would be shot, or worse – abducted.

We drove slowly to the meeting place, kept the car running, and waited.

Some minutes (ages) later a car stopped in front of us.

One of the brothers, with him his daughter (20) stepped out of the car and approached us.

He greeted us gravely, and told his daughter to ride with us. He told us that this was insurance given by him, that we were “safe”, his daughter was to ride with us.

snip

A whole living district quite, quite empty.

Hundreds of homes, quite, quite empty.

Shops shuttered, schools hollow, and windswept courts, where the laughter of children used to fill the air.

And the dust, a deep layer of dust, perhaps the most telling sign that these homes were homes no longer…

We paid our respects, wept together with any who came in to show their sorrow.

But in our hearts we knew – we were weeping for ourselves and for our sorry existence bereft of our loved ones.

Note: Sahar's blog accepts comments. You may offer your condolences if you wish.

Quote of the Day

The challenge we face today is not how to win in Iraq; it is how to recover from a strategic mistake: invading Iraq in the first place. The war could never have served American interests. But it has served Iran’s interest by revenging Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran in the 1980s and enhancing Iran’s influence within Iraq. It has also served al Qaeda’s interests, providing a much better training ground than did Afghanistan, allowing it to build its ranks far above the levels and competence that otherwise would have been possible.

We cannot ‘win’ a war that serves our enemies interests and not our own. Thus continuing to pursue the illusion of victory in Iraq makes no sense. We can now see that it never did. A wise commander in this situation normally revises his objectives and changes his strategy, not just marginally, but radically. Nothing less today will limit the death and destruction that the invasion of Iraq has unleashed. No effective new strategy can be devised for the United States until it begins withdrawing its forces from Iraq. Only that step will break the paralysis that now confronts us.

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Photo: Smoke rises as residents recover victims at the scene of a suicide car bomb attack in Kerbala April 28, 2007. A suicide car bomber killed 57 people and wounded nearly 160 near one of Iraq's most revered Shi'ite Muslim shrines in the city of Kerbala on Saturday, in an attack likely to inflame sectarian tensions. (Stringer/Reuters)

Baghdad- An American convoy was targeted by an IED explosion on the airport street west Baghdad at 8:30 a.m. The U.S. troops closed the area; no casualties reported yet.

Baghdad- Two civilians were injured in an IED explosion near Al Neda’a mosque in Wazirirah neighborhood in east Baghdad at 2:00 p.m.

Baghdad - Two civilians were injured in a parked car bomb explosion in Shoala in west Baghdad at 4:30 p.m.

Baghdad- Three civilians were wounded when an IED exploded near Al Shurta tunnel in southwest Baghdad at 5:30 p.m.

Baghdad- 17 unidentified bodies were found in Baghdad today. 16 were found in Karkh, in the western part of Baghdad, in the following neighborhoods: six bodies in Al Amil, two bodies in Saidiyah, two bodies in Hurriyah, two bodies in Bayaa, two bodies in Doura, one body in Mahmoudiyah, one body in Washshash. One body was found in SadrCity in the eastern part of Baghdad.

Muqdadiyah- A security source with the Muqdadiyah police said that a police patrol had found an anonymous body on the outskirts of town Friday evening. The body had many gunshots, the source said.

Muqdadiyah - A security source in Muqdadiyah said a civilian was injured in the Wajihiyah section of Muqdadiyah early Saturday morning. The source added that another policeman was injured in clashes that took place in Khaleel Basha area in north Baquba early Saturday.

Baquba - A source with the Baquba police said American forces killed a driver in downtown Baquba Friday evening. No more details were revealed.

Abbara - Police patrols of Abbara area, 10 kilometers north of Baquba, said they found the bodies of four farmers who were kidnapped Thursday.

A State Department report on terrorism due out next week will show a nearly 30 percent increase in terrorist attacks worldwide in 2006 to more than 14,000, almost all of the boost due to growing violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. officials said Friday.A half-dozen U.S. officials with knowledge of the report's contents or the debate surrounding it agreed to discuss those topics on the condition they not be identified because of the extreme political sensitivities surrounding the war and the report.Based on data compiled by the U.S. intelligence community's NationalCounterterrorismCenter, the report says there were 14,338 terrorist attacks last year, up 29 percent from 11,111 attacks in 2005.Forty-five percent of the attacks were in Iraq.Worldwide, there were about 5,800 terrorist attacks that resulted in at least one fatality, also up from 2005.The figures for Iraq and elsewhere are limited to attacks on noncombatants and don't include strikes against U.S. troops.

Rival factions in the southern city of Basra have mobilized their armed militias for what many residents expect to be a ferocious fight over control of the provincial council.Residents are hoarding essentials with sporadic clashes between the factions intensifying in the past three days in which various weapons were used.As armed groups fortify positions in major streets and amid heavily populated areas the occupying British troops charged with security have so far shown little concern.The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has not move a finger to contain the spiral of violence in the city which could easily spread to other areas.The Basra Islamic Front, an umbrella for five Islamist groups, is reported to have deployed nearly 7,000 armed men in the city in a bid to force current governor Mohammed al-Waili to quit.Waili belongs to the rival Fadhila faction whose armed men are guarding the governor’s headquarters in the city and vowing to fight off the attackers.Basra is the capital of the predominantly Muslim Shiite province of the same name. There are fears that the growing tension may adversely affect the country’s oil output.Basra oil fields are crucial to the country’s exports with output form the northern oil fields of Kirkuk shrinking.The Fadhila party of governor Waili is reported to be in control of Iraq’s Southern Oil Company which administers the province’s oil output.Fadhila supporters hold key positions in the industry and analysts say the current feud is more over control of oil than the provincial council.

Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr said U.S. President George W. Bush destroyed Iraq and accused him of disregarding international calls to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq."Bush, the leader of evil, is obstinately ignoring calls to exit Iraq or even initiate a timetable for withdrawal as demanded by the Democrats," Sadr said in a message to Bush read out by Liqaa Al Yassin, a member of parliament loyal to Sadr.The U.S. House of Representatives had approved on Thursday a bill linking a budget to finance U.S. troops in Iraq to the drawing up of a timetable for pullout, beginning next October.Sadr discredited statements that the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq would cause chaos. "What chaos will happen if the U.S. army withdrew from our lands. We are already in a chaotic Iraq where blood is shed every few moments and explosions and car bombs are never ending," Sadr said in his statement.The young Shiite cleric added that the policies pursued by the U.S. administration in Iraq after the fall of the former regime in April 2003 were the main reason behind the chaos Iraq is going through at the moment.

Azzaman, in its London edition (but apparently not in its Baghdad edition) says this:

Meanwhile, in the field, the religious parties in Basra have rallied their militias in preparation for a final showdown over the governorship of the municipality, while residents, frightened, have have been laying in stores of necessities since the violence started spreading three days ago, involving light and medium weapons and mortar. And meanwhile the Iraqi government, which is led by Nuri al-Maliki, continues to adhere to its policy of silence on this issue, demonstrating yet again its inability to stop this expected outbreak of violence in Iraq's third-largest municipality, source of fully one-third of Iraq's crude oil, which is now threatened with stoppage in the event of an outbreak of violence between these militias.

The reporter quotes a government source who said the main opposing militia forces are those of the Fadhila party on the one side (the party of the current governor), and those of a group led by SCIRI and the Badr orgainzation on the other.

The United States will reportedly wait till September to make its first formal assessment of whether a US troop "surge" now under way in Iraq is producing results.In interviews over the past week, the officials made clear that the White House is gradually scaling back its expectations for the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, the report said.The timelines they are now discussing suggest that the White House may maintain the increased numbers of American troops in Iraq well into next year, the paper said.That prospect would entail a dramatically longer commitment of frontline troops, patrolling the most dangerous neighborhoods of Baghdad, than the one envisioned in legislation that passed the House and Senate this week, The Times said.

Democrats' Timetable Allows U.S. War in Sunni Region to Go OnThe language on a timetable for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq voted out of the House-Senate conference committee this week contains large loopholes that would apparently allow U.S. troops to continue carrying out military operations in Iraq's Sunni heartland indefinitely.The plan, coming from the Democratic majority in Congress, makes an exemption from a 180-day timetable for completion of "redeployment" of U.S. troops from Iraq to allow "targeted special actions limited in duration and scope to killing or capturing members of al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations of global reach." The al-Qaeda exemption, along with a second exemption allowing U.S. forces to re-enter Iraq to protect those remaining behind to train and equip Iraqi security forces and to protect other U.S. military forces, appears to approve the presence in Iraq of tens of thousands of U.S. occupation troops for many years to come.